The Higgs Field, explained - Don Lincoln
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-higgs-field-explained-don-lincoln One of the most significant scientific discoveries of the early 21st century is surely the Higgs boson, but...
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Without a doubt, the most exciting scientific observation of 2012 was the discovery of a new particle at the CERN laboratory that could be the Higgs boson, a particle named after physicist Peter Higgs. The Higgs Field is thought to give mass to fundamental, subatomic particles like the quarks and leptons that make up ordinary matter. The Higgs bosons are wiggles in the field, like the bump you see when you twitch a rope. But how does this field give mass to particles? If this sounds confusing to you, you're not alone. In 1993, the British Science Minister challenged physicists to invent a simple way to understand all this Higgs stuff. The prize was a bottle of quality champagne. The winning explanation went something like this: Suppose there...
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Without a doubt, the most exciting scientific observation of 2012 was the discovery of a new particle at the CERN laboratory that could be the Higgs boson, a particle named after physicist Peter Higgs. The Higgs Field is thought to give mass to fundamental, subatomic particles like the quarks and leptons that make up ordinary matter. The Higgs bosons are wiggles in the field, like the bump you see when you twitch a rope. But how does this field give mass to particles? If this sounds confusing to you, you're not alone. In 1993, the British Science Minister challenged physicists to invent a simple way to understand all this Higgs stuff. The prize was a bottle of quality champagne. The winning explanation went something like this: Suppose there...
